LATE Season Largemouth Bass

[FishnDave]

This is a LATE report.
Here in central Iowa, at least, we had a VERY LONG Fall season. We do get ice here in the winter, thick enough to fish on...and even drive on. I've icefished as early as the week before Thanksgiving, but some years not until January.

It was nice to be able to continue flyfishing open water into the first week or so of December.
Typically the later in the year it gets, the fewer bass I catch, so I wind up targeting crappie or stocker trout right up until ice-up.
But this year I stayed on bass all the way to ice-up.

The Fall season started back in late September. I was using shad imitations for awhile, until the action on those faded to almost nil. But then I switched to big articulated flies (like Blayne Chocklett's Gamechanger) for about 4 weeks. I fished these pretty aggressively at first, and caught a lot of good bass, including my biggest bass of the year, 21.25". As the water cooled, I put longer pauses in the retrieve to still catch fish. The water temps eventually got too cold even for that.









I finished off the year by switching to a 1/80th oz to 1/32nd oz jig under an indicator...the Float-n-Fly technique. This caught some nice bass for me as well, including my 2nd biggest bass of the year, 20.5".

[lastchance]

Good for you, Dave. I never tied one of those Game Changers. Are they difficult or just tedious?

[James Smith]

VERY nice bass, especially for that far north. Any chance you could post a side photo of that pattern dry with a list of materials? I like the looks of it and with the temps in the 20s here, I'm much more likely to spend time at the bench than on the water.

Jim Smith

[FishnDave]

VERY nice bass, especially for that far north. Any chance you could post a side photo of that pattern dry with a list of materials? I like the looks of it and with the temps in the 20s here, I'm much more likely to spend time at the bench than on the water.

Jim Smith

In the picture above, the top and 3rd one down are typical of the ones I fished most.
Materials:
-Fish Skull Articulated Fish Spines
-Chockletts Gamechanger Chenille (for the tail sections)
-Hareline Frizzle Chenille WIDE (for the head section)\
-Wapsi Palmer Chenille (at the rear of each segment)
-Hook sized for your pattern, usually a 1/0 or 2/0 straight-eye wide gap hook.
-Eyes (I just used a sharpie to draw on eyes for these...but they DO look better with 3D eyes).

I had bought some Umpqua-tied versions...they look good, but I felt they were slightly bigger (and stiffer) than I wanted to use (they are 4.5"), so I tied mine just a bit shorter. Mine have 4 sections, with the 4th (front) Fish Spine lashed to the hook shank. Length @ 4".
And then I tied some with just 2 segments (and marabou tails) with a total length of 3.25"...these also had really good action and caught plenty of fish.

[FishnDave]

My apologies....yes, I do realize these are all hideous examples of flytying. I should have posted a warning...some of you may be viewing this on a full stomach.

[James Smith]

Thanks Dave. I ordered the connectors today and will tie some up as soon as they arrive. I love trying new patterns, especially in the spring when the big bass are willing to bite. I'll post photos.

Thanks again and have a great weekend.

Jim Smith

[BadBug]

No need to apologize for those patterns Dave. You caught some really nice fish with them and thats all that counts. Nice photos by the way.
What hooks did you use dave? I like the looks of those hackle versions.

Dennis

[FishnDave]

Good for you, Dave. I never tied one of those Game Changers. Are they difficult or just tedious?

Not difficult at all. Definitely tedious, because its like you are tying 4 or more separate flies and have to connect each segment to the next....but the action in the water when using a jerk-pause retrieve is fantastic, and the bass love it. The first time I really started using these, I visited a local public pond and caught 5 bass in the first 6 casts! I was amazed! And experimenting with body materials is fun. Folks tie them with marabou bodies, hen saddles, Chocklett's body wrap, EP brushes, etc. I've tied some of the hen saddle versions. I think they look good, but I haven't had a chance to fish them yet.

[SMClark]

Can you teach me how to do this cast ? ?

[FishnDave]

Ha! I wondered about this too! Thats a weird one, isn't it! Certainly an unusual and unlikely hookup for sure.